You’re young and it comes easy. It flows out of you. You get a bit older and it starts to feel more like work. Life intercedes, your creative side suffers, and you struggle. You hit the wall and you feel like you just can’t do it anymore. You’re blocked, stuck in the crucible, and it seems like there’s no escape. You contemplate giving up, throwing in the towel. It would be easier to just call it a day — it would alleviate a lot of pain. But you can’t. You have to keep fighting. You have to do the work. So you make a plan. First, you strip yourself of all that is holding you back. You get lean and mean. You do the work. It’s the only way. The only way to find your new path back to creative fulfillment. And one day it comes to you: that big idea. The lightbulb that illuminates that corner of your imagination that had been held in shadow for so long. Maybe it’s just the idea that gets you back at the desk, or maybe it’s a world-class winner of a concept that lights a fire across the globe.

This is your story. The story of every writer.

And, as we now know, it is the story of Don Draper, the now iconic character at the heart of Matthew Weiner’s Mad Men.

http://actfourscreenplays.com/staging/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/111844600-06192509.jpg367520StoryMapsDanhttp://actfourscreenplays.com/staging/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/great-script-header7.pngStoryMapsDan2015-05-19 19:09:092015-11-22 18:41:40BOOKENDS: We are all Don Draper (the pilot and series finale of Mad Men)

http://actfourscreenplays.com/staging/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/great-script-header7.png00StoryMapsDanhttp://actfourscreenplays.com/staging/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/great-script-header7.pngStoryMapsDan2014-04-02 14:38:542014-04-16 17:05:35Mad Men season 7 pre-show: Don Draper's six-season arc in under two minutes

In a unique move, AMC has released the first publicity stills for Mad Men Season 6 and they are in black and white. They remind me of those candid photos from celebrity parties in the 1950S and 1960S. You expect to see Truman Capote or Frank Sinatra in the background of one of these shots.

http://actfourscreenplays.com/staging/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/great-script-header7.png00StoryMapsDanhttp://actfourscreenplays.com/staging/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/great-script-header7.pngStoryMapsDan2013-01-27 23:27:142013-04-16 13:53:54Mad Men in Black and White

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a huge, huge, huge fan of Mad Men. After each episode, I comb the web for any and all Mad Men-related material, and since there’s many other nutjobs out there who are also mad for Mad Men, the blogosphere never disappoints.

But most high-profile sites only feature one still photo from each episode, and since I’m on the AMC press list and have access to various publicity materials, I decided I’d work harder to bring you guys more images for your scrapbooks, including ones you might not see anywhere else yet (like the pic above). Read more →